The thing I hate the absolute most about writing is what I call the "struck by lightning phenomenon." I really call it that just for the sake of this post, because I usually don't think in such concrete terms to myself, but I know this is something that happens in my writing regularly.
I get a good idea and I run as fast as I can with it. I usually make it about 20 feet before I'm stopped, dead.

The inspiration hits, and it jolts you awake and alive and ready for anything and then it's gone again, probably never to return.

That's what happens with stories. It's why I take a running leap to my first draft and fall down somewhere around the end of act one. By that time, the lightning has stopped, the hairs on the back of my neck aren't standing up anymore, and there's no current running through me. I've lost the spark of what attracted me to the story in the first place.

Once that's gone, it's really hard to get it back.

I saw that in my project from last summer, Indy Film, when I wrote and planned and wrote (again) like crazy, and then one day it just stopped being interesting to me. I changed jobs, someone criticized something, and all of a sudden the project was just another something that should stay in my desk drawer, an early writing from a young writer and it should never see the light of day.

Sadly, it even happens with blog posts. The joy of something can fizzle out in less than 300 words? What a mess of a writer I must be.

But if I think even deeper, this isn't exclusive to my writing. Everything's more exciting in the beginning. Jobs, possessions, food. It all looks better until you've had to live with it for a little while.

If I can just learn to hold on after the honeymoon phase is over, I think I'll finally start getting somewhere.